


Moonlight Shining

by amyfortuna



Category: Blue Castle - Montgomery
Genre: F/M, Het, Wedding Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-06 20:14:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyfortuna/pseuds/amyfortuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barney remembers a night long ago, the first night after his marriage to Valancy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moonlight Shining

The first time I saw my Valancy was an ordinary day, on an ordinary street. I was driving along, just about to pass in front of the library, and there she was. She’d stopped and was leaning against a fence-post with a book in her hand. She was holding it to herself, fingers slipped between the pages, as though some sudden thought or inspiration made her drop the book and look upward.

It was a good look, even for an old maid in frumpy old-fashioned clothing, and I smiled, half to myself. In my rear-view mirror I saw her look up as an approaching couple walked toward her. She started out of whatever dream she’d been in, letting her hand with the book in it fall to her side and rushing down the street with a faint trace of a blush staining her cheeks.

It wasn’t until the next year I got to know her better. Got to know her name, and her nature. I came to know her heart was a good one. She was kinder to little Miss Gay than anyone else in the village had the guts to be. But I didn’t think she’d really try to break from the chains of her family, not until that day after Cissy’s death, after the funeral, when everything was settling back into normal life.

I thought I’d be taking her home. Turns out I was, but home wasn’t the place I thought it was. Home was always the place it’s become under her hands.

We were married in the quietest way, with scarcely more ceremony than a couple of wildflowers, but I liked it this way. She did too – didn’t want her family fussing around. It was quite unusual for a woman, I thought at the time. But I didn’t know the banked fire in her heart, and yet somehow I had stirred the embers and roused it into roaring flame.

Of course she was only doing it because she would only have a year to live. Given a lifetime, who would choose me? She told me that wasn’t true, said she loved me, but how could I believe that?

I’d like to be able to tell you that I fell in love with her when she proposed – or better yet, that I was already in love with her then and didn’t want to say it. But it’s not true. Some people fall all at once like falling off a cliff, headlong into the deep blue without knowing whether they would fly or die. That wasn’t me, that wouldn’t be me ever again.

My love for Valancy crept upon me in ways I couldn’t understand. It killed me by inches without my knowledge. Every day was another step into love with her, every night with her in my bed was another night I became more irrevocably lost to her.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I spent most of my wedding wondering how I was going to manage to keep my secrets to myself while wondering at the same time why I wanted to just tell her everything right away. I think it would have overwhelmed her, though.

As we arrived home, I was half-tempted to carry her across the threshold of our little cabin, but I resisted. I’d kissed her for the first time moments before and I very much wanted to do it again. I was already falling and didn’t know it.

So instead I just turned in the doorway, bent, and kissed her there, as she stood in the glow of the last daylight. She readily melted into my arms. I wanted to pick her up and carry her straight to the bed, to not delay a moment in making her entirely mine, but I could feel the delicate bones under her skin and figured food might be better for her than love just then.

Supper was a slightly strange affair. We prepared it together, mostly in silence, and ate together, mostly in silence. Our eyes kept meeting and we’d glance away. It was almost too intimate, too soon. A throbbing tension filled the air, not quite an awkwardness, but an expectation.

By the time we were finished, the moon shone pale in the night sky and the stars were out. Little Luck sat on the sofa, looking at us solemnly, and Banjo was curled up in his chair asleep. Valancy made her way to sit next to Good Luck, and petted him softly for a few minutes, while I gathered up my courage. My reputation painted me as a rough, tough man who no doubt had bedded hundreds of women, but in reality I had only ever kissed one woman in my life before my wife.

I sat down next to her, and she turned toward me, settling against me with a rapturous sigh. Without thought I took her into my arms and kissed her again, lingeringly, slowly this time.

After some time, many more kisses, and some very hushed whispers, we joined hands and together made our way to the bedroom. In the dim light my Moonlight shone as though she was a star herself, her white skin glowing in the candlelight as we carefully undressed her. I don’t know how my clothes came away, but I remember that we were naked together, her long dark hair cascading down her back like a river on a starry night. And when I kissed her then, my arms holding her, my hands sliding over her hips, she moaned into my mouth.

If virgins were always shy no one would ever make love. Certainly on this night we two were not shy. She was no less bold than I, running delicate fingers over the lines of my shoulders and down my back, then curving in to caress my chest. We were teaching the sweetest lessons of all to each other, finding out about love from first principles just as though we were Adam and Eve in the garden and mankind had never sinned.

We ended up on the bed – I remember her slipping from my grasp and reaching out a white hand to beckon me to her as she crouched there, eyes laughing. Her breasts, small and supple, hung like fruit from her, begging to be tasted. I kissed her hand, her wrist, her collarbone, bit her neck lightly – she gasped and loved it – fondled one breast while nuzzling the other. I tumbled her back into the cushions, desperate for her now.

Her hands were not idle; I saw her eyes go wide as she touched me, and a wicked grin cross her face as she took me in her hand. I almost lost control at the feel of her fingers wrapped around me. I had to close my eyes and bend my head to her shoulder so I could breathe.

I wanted to stay against her like that forever, leaning into the gentle caress of her hand, but I wanted to be inside her even more. My own hand stole down between us, slipping between her legs. She was wet with desire, and so hot to my touch that again I had to groan softly and try to restrain myself. She was making tiny breathless noises, head thrown back, eyes shut. Her hips pushed up into my hand and I could delay no longer.

She looked up at me, eyes wide with passion, as I made my way inside her. I was careful and feared to hurt her, but I saw no pain on her face. There was a look in her eyes that I will never forget – she was a woman transported by passion, beyond all thought of fear or failure, beyond the consciousness of herself. My own look must have been no different; if she’d then asked me to spill my secrets I would have given her every detail.

But secrets were not what either of us wished to spill just then. Our bodies joined, I kissed her deeply. All thought of time was lost and I could feel only her and the movement of our bodies. Anywhere I touched her started a new fire in my veins. When her eyes snapped open to stare into mine as she shook beneath me, my world went white as I shivered and buried myself in her, desire peaking. Long minutes later I came to myself and found her looking at me, and that too was a new look on a woman’s face, the look of the triumphant beloved.

Of course these are happy memories from long ago now, and they have been rose-tinged with the life we have lived and the love we have shared in the intervening years. In that time, we have enjoyed countless acts of pleasure. And yet her mystery and beauty never fades.

I never thought, in those early days, that I would love Valancy for forty years and yet here we are, grey-haired, with not only children but grandchildren as well. I still find her smile alluring and her voice maddening. She is still the core of my heart and the fire of my soul – my jewel, my Moonlight, still shining.


End file.
